Welcome Comrades to the 58th edition of the Dispatch! I was fairly garrulous in my introduction to the War Games section (below) so I will compensate by being unusually sententious up here in the main introduction. After ten months and four days on the newsletter staff, I have for the first time been trusted with the task of taking a turn as overall publisher. Of course, I repaid the trust of my comrades by devising a technical conundrum that had Leehar and Victor Sullivan up all night pulling their hair out as they tried to fix it. I think after today they'll put me back in my playpen with some nice colouring books and some soft crayons!

This issue is absolutely full of great stuff. Look for a sneak preview of Bra Wars, episode 4, which alone is worth the price of admission. I won't tell you where to look for it; you'll just have to enjoy the process of discovery! Pander88uk answers questions from the visitors' gallery, Isaiah40 has a buoyant interview with Industrial Helix, alt1978 reports on the dramatic rise to stardom of several new clans, thehippo8 provides an almost encyclopedic overview of some copyright precedents relevant to our mapmakers, and the Magister Omnia Banana himself makes a special guest appearance in War Games. Have fun exploring!

Ahh, Halloween, that time of the year where kids get one night to stock up on hyperactivity fuel (otherwise know as candy) and dentists start polishing their drills for the many cavities to come.

Here on Conquer Club, we have our Halloween Hallows map, but I've got a couple suggestions to make this Halloween a little more interesting.

Avatar CostumesInstead of your played out MLP or Slowpoke avatars, why not find an avatar of something you'd like to dress up as, either in real life or CC. Angry Birds seems to be a popular choice this year. Of course, if you're going for shock value, may I suggest reusing the avatar of a notorious CC player. Duality. comes to mind, or perhaps one of the old Flame Wars regulars. Guaranteed to bring a shiver down certain user's spines.

Pagan SacrificeIt seems that the most common General Discussion topic tends to be the randomness (or lack thereof) of the dice. Going back to the pagan roots of Halloween, perhaps the gods are displeased at your lack of sacrifice to appease them. Correct that oversight this Halloween by putting your computer (or laptop or phone) on a pedestal covered in black velvet. Turn off the lights and light a bunch of candles. Then wear a hooded robe and start chanting verses in the hopes of better dice rolls. Goat/firstborn blood optional.

*Editor's note* If the book you're using has pentagrams, appears to be somehow alive, or is stained in unrecognizable liquid, it might be a good idea not to go through with the sacrifice. Things tend not to end well for the summoner of eldritch spirits/ tormented souls/ undead beings. We value your premium membership.

Write and shoot a horror filmNothing sets the mood better than turning on your favorite horror film on Halloween. Why not do your own take on the slasher genre with your own CC killer?

I can see it now, a killer known only as "Snake Eyes" kills people who are playing CC. All their victims are found with two dice in their mouth.

Wait a minute, that wasn't what I had in mind, although it could be a good summer movie character.

Want to get into the Mafia scene, but don't know how to play or even what it is? Consult these threads: Mafia Information, Mafia and You, and Rules and Terms of Mafia.Too much work? Too lazy to read through everything? No worries, you can always jump right into a game and ask for other players or the game runner to help guide you.

What is "Mafia"?Mafia, for those of you that don't know, is a game that generally takes place in a town, where the townspeople have to determine who the mafia (or "scum") is and lynch them via a majority vote during the day and the mafia try to kill everyone at night and bluff their way out of getting killed by the town.

Mafia NewsPower Mafia has ended with a perfect victory for the mafia. After getting off to a good start with an arsonist lynch Day 1, town was done in by 6 straight town deaths, either through nightkills or lynches.

Gangster Mafia had an unusual ending as the Serial Killer managed to fakeclaim his way to a win. An extremely bold move by dazza2008 as he claimed the real Serial Killer name but fakeclaimed an overeager Vigilante role.

Mafia CalloutsCalling all players interested! Some mafia games need some filling:

The Arsonist functions much like a delayed Serial Killer. Each night, he may choose to do one of two actions. He may choose to "douse" a player with gasoline or he may choose to ignite all doused players. The ignition ignores any doctor protection. The counter to the Arsonist is the Firefighter, who can save players who are ignited. However, the Firefighter can only save one person each night, so if the Arsonist has doused several players, then some players will inevitably die. It is up to the mod's discretion if the Firefighter can remove gasoline from doused players. Also, it is up to the mod's choice whether to inform the doused players that they have been doused. Should the Arsonist die before being able to ignite the players, then the players revert to normal.

Example

Jack has doused both John and Amy. He chooses to ignite all doused characters. Both John and Amy die.

How to Play this Role

The Arsonist is always a Third Party role. A modified form of a Serial Killer, the Arsonist has the potential to be very strong if he manages to get to endgame. As the number of players remaining decrease, the possibility of dousing a mafia player goes up, so the Arsonist may also use his ability to try and keep town from being endgamed. Be aware however, that busdrivers have the potential to redirect the Arsonist's dousing back to themselves, forcing them to not ignite their targets.

The presence of a Firefighter is less useful than a doctor, as the Firefighter usually is not able to save everyone should they be ignited. However, the presence of a Firefighter role may be a good clue to both town and mafia that there is an Arsonist in the game.

Well the majority of this website will know one of the answers to that, else we wouldn't all be conversing in this wonderful language. But what sets us apart from other nationalities? Well, it's got to be the good old 'stiff upper lip', hasn't it? Other than that, definitely package holidays.

Q. Why did you decide to come back to CC after your last break?

I couldn't really stay away, could I? The nearest CC rehab clinic is on the other side of the Atlantic, and unfortunately I can't get treatment on the NHS! But I have nabafed to keep my gameload down to between 5 and 20 at a time (down from 150-250), so hopefully I can cope with it this time around!

Q. Beer or whiskey?

Well, of course in Britain we spell it 'whisky', but as only the Scots (and possibly the Japanese - try some, it's actually very good) make anything half decent under that name, I'll allow you the spelling faux-pas. But in answer to your question... for getting drunk on, beer. For enjoying, whisk(e)y. I even travelled to Lynchburg a couple of weeks ago for Mr Jack's birthday weekend, which I believe shows my passion for the stuff (but then again could JD be better described as Bourbon? Meh, apples and oranges).

Q. Anony - bogan or the goat? Why?

Anony; while a Brit should never have a fondness for a Jerry, Anonymus was one of the few who actually seemed to notice I'd gone when I had my break (and then came back of course), and has always been polite and courteous! Also, a great profile pic.

Q. Who do you Pander to in the UK?

Few people know that 'to pander' is a term relating to prostitution. From Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge):

Wikipedia wrote:Procuring or pandering is the facilitation or provision of a prostitute in the arrangement of a sex act with a customer. Examples of procuring include:

trafficking a prostitute into a country for the purpose of soliciting sex

operating a prostitution business

transporting a prostitute to the location of their arrangement

But really, I pander to my football team, the mighty Reading FC.

Q. What were your favourite war games before discovering CC?

I always enjoyed a bit of Risk. On the computer, I always played games like Command and Conquer, Age of Empires, Total War, Civilization etc. etc. If I had the time to, I'm sure I still would enjoy playing them all day and night!

Q. What was your favourite thing about O&H before they disbanded?

O&H was a great clan with great people, and we all had tons of fun in the forums (especially when it came to long essays written about which country is the best, USA or UK). Lots of xenophobia going on there... my favourite moment was definitely my 100% record in O&Hs famous win over LOW.

Q. Why the heck would you join FOED?

Goodness knows! Well, as the majority of my regular teammates were joining at the time, it only seemed right and sensible, and I haven't regretted it once! Oh, by the way... FOED

Q. Who are your favourite Quads partners now?

Got a great one off team outside of clan wars with DJ Teflon, JNash & Natascha... we welcome any challenges on Wales - pretty decent record on there! Within my clan, the likes of nippersean, danryan, L M S & Deli I play the most games with and seem to have a good understanding with (even if they are all rude SOBs at times ), but everyone in FOED is a great teammate!

Q. Are you obsessed with Panda Bears?

Yes, yes I am.

Q. What is your favorite alcoholic beverage my dear?

Probably already answered above, but a bit of whisk(e)y certainly can't go amiss. Otherwise, I do love drinking real ale and cider (the latter can often get me mashed pretty quickly).

Q. When you are not on CC what three things do you enjoy doing the most? Now that's a direct question, Dazey! Surely you know my frequent trips to Austin to visit you are the highlights of my life? When I can't see you though, I love travelling all over the place, sometimes just to watch sport (I've visited South Africa for the express purpose of watching a cricket match before - also went for footy world cup, and I've been on overnight trips to Spain and Belgium just to watch 90 minutes of football - yet I've still never visited Prenton Park )

Q. You're from the UK, have you met LFAW, JoshyBoy, Eddie2 or DJ Teflon in real life. If not who would be top of the list and why?

Aren't Eddie and Joshy actually Ant & Dec in real life? No, I've not met any of them. DJ would definitely be top of that list. 539 games played with him speaks volumes, and we're even so sad as to text each other when turns are up on rare occasions!

Q. Is it true you drink fermented camels milk with a friend we have in common?

Ah so you know Borat as well? I enjoy a good tipple of Chal with the old fella on a regular basis.

Q. Why is America better than England at everything?

That's a tough one. Possibly it could be due to that substance they put in the water over there that makes all your heads that slightly bit larger than ours?

Q. Do you ever wake up and just feel slightly ashamed about being English? Is that like a bad hair day only worse?

We call them bad teeth days over here.

Q. You have an uncanny resemblance to Prime Minister David "Dave" Cameron.Do you share his political views?

Dave's a good friend of mine; we often pop down together to Windsor Castle for tea with the Queen (as is customary for every English person at least twice a month). Dave's views are very Liberal for someone who calls himself a Conservative, so I don't particularly mind him. I'm in fact pretty sure that he, Blair and Clegg are actually all products from George 'Gideon' Osborne's "Cloning Under Neath Towels" machine.

Q. How do you feel about being a member of the sexiest clan on CC?

I've never felt harder.

Q. Does that help you with the Ladieees? Do you get free tickets for concerts and shows because of it?

I get free tickets to everything, not least because of the amazing clan I'm a part of. I'm actually having to hire some extra help to keep the ladies off (it eventually gets tiresome being so sexy).

Q. How did you come to be on the Entertainment Team?

I applied with the rest of the folk (way back when I had time on my hands to handle it) and was approached by Sam asking for a hand.

Q. What did you do on the Entertainment Team?

My main project was helping to run the singles tournament of the World Cup 2010 Official CC tournament. Damn, that was a tough task, required a lot of time from myself and Gilligan to sort out all the games. Over 1000 in total; maybe not in the same league at HA's current tournament, but it was a lot for me! I also helped with a couple of the chat quizzes that were really very enjoyable.

Q. Why did you leave?

Just too much going on with work to be able to offer the time required to be a good Entertainment volunteer. I definitely came to the realisation that all of Team CC work their asses off, and I'm very grateful for all of them spending their time to help make this site worth coming back to!

Q. Thanks for your time Pander.

Hello again my friends, and welcome to your favorite part of the Newsletter, "War Games", where you can find information about CC Tournaments! I am really thrilled with the way our section is developing. We now have four excellent writers on board (you could stretch it to five if you wanted to be generous to me.) In theory I am their editor, but in practice my "editing" is limited to a few (infrequent) suggestions for improvement and cleaning up an occasional missed underline. These guys never require any hard editing of the kind one is used to doing with volunteer publications. They are just so good, and so professional, and reading the stuff they produce is an absolute delight.

This issue, we launch our newest feature, Meet the Tournament Organisers, which will complement and parallel our existing series, Meet the Tournament Winners. This issue, WorldCup4James has produced the former, while I have produced the latter, but this is not intended to be a fixed division of labour: we both intend to produce interviews of both kinds, and mix and match as we go to keep it fresh. I hope you really enjoy the interviews, the former with fuzzy316 and the latter with EBConquer.

We could hardly avoid mention of CC's new supertournament, the Conquer Cup. In this issue, AndyDufresne makes a special guest appearance to begin our coverage. We will have more in every issue.

Our newest recruit is DaveH, who has come on board to write a series on the nuts-and-bolts of tournament organizing. Like all our other reporters, Dave is an experienced Tournament Organiser himself. And like sonicsteve, he is from Devonshire. Do you suppose there's a conspiracy afoot? Ha! If these guys have half the chutzpah that Sir Francis Drake brought to the table, they will have us conquered (or should I say Conquered) in no time! Dave's first column will be fairly basic, but he will soon be delving into more advanced and complicated issues of tournament organisation. If you have a question about tournaments that you think he should be covering, by all means send him a message.

Angola is on leave; he will have another TPA Update for us in the next issue. Sonicsteve has produced another Join This? Or Not! column. Those keep getting bigger and better; there are just so many exciting new tournaments being launched.

Conquer Cup I (1) has been underway now for a little over a week, and it looks like games are going strong. Based purely on some informal eye-scanning of participants and their respective rank match-ups in games, it looks like we've managed some excellent random match-ups.

Participant ranks really run the gamut from Cooks to Brigadiers which is great to see. It is also reassuring that a number of games by happenstance are without any Lieutenants or higher---which means that at least a few participants holding the torch of the lower ranks will make it to Round 2!

I expect as the First Round gets whittled down and the surviving participant pool drops dramatically, we'll all have better insight into some of the favorites to win it all. Perhaps it'll be a well-known high ranked player? Or maybe we've a dark-horse in the field racing to a win...we'll have to see!

The CC Tournament world has always been one of the high-points of Conquer Club; there have been over 600,000 games and nearly 6000 exhilarating tournaments that have drawn players willing to make that leap from the casual exhibition match to the fiercely competitive realm of tournament play. Triumphing in a tournament is no easy feat; the elation of victory has been experienced by 1,712 players, only around 10% of all active CC members.

But only about 5% of all CC members have volunteered and hosted tournaments. Unlike tournament winners, they often do not take in their fair share of the limelight and recognition. Just as we have interviewed tournament winners, it's time to recognize some impressive feats of creativity and organization from our tournament organizers.

In only 6 short months, Fuzzy316 has hosted 26 tournaments. At the moment, he's hosting 12 tournaments, and three are open for signups. His impressive streak of creative and well-run tournaments has earned him a feature in our new series of "Meet the Tournament Organizers."

As I will mention with all featured tournament organizers, hosting tournaments is very time-consuming, particularly in writing the rules, creating games, and posting updates, not to mention the hours pacing around playing with a genuinely unique concept that maybe you thought of from talking with a friend, watching TV, or reading a book, and then connecting all the dots to make everything just right.

Why go through all the trouble? What motivates you to host tournaments?

Well, to begin with why I go through all the trouble...I entered myself in a number of other player's tournaments and only recently won my first. (Currently hosting a "My First Tourney Win Tourney" as a result). I find it a fun and exciting way to add a different dimension to the overall gameplay of ConquerClub. Yes it is time consuming and sometimes difficult to do, but hey, people like variety in their life. I have found hosting tournaments an exciting challenge to myself to continually try to come up with unique themes and rules/stipulations of tournaments. Once I started my first few, I quickly actually became addicted to running them and keep trying to run a variety of tourneys at once, instead of the same ones over and over, in order to keep things fresh for those players I host.

Also, in many ways you have the chance of playing a variety of players, some who you would not normally play. For example: A cook has very little chance of getting to play a high ranked opponent... say Lieutenant or higher, in a regular game, unless they are invited specifically. However, in tournament play, especially those with seeded tourneys, those low ranked players will tend to start against those players. I know I personally feel some satisfaction when I am able to beat someone who is say... 750+ points higher in rank than me.

What do you think sets your tournaments apart, and what concept do you think helps make your tournaments enjoyable?

I think that the uniqueness of the tournaments and what I do with them sets them apart. For example, I have the Fast and Furious series, which is almost complete, resulting in a Finale tourney. I also have the American Odyssey tourney, going through American history through our maps. Then there is the Super Series which is similar to some already run, but unique in its own way.

I also try to take some real life occurrences and bring them here, such as the "Well Smurf me Silly" tournament that I started since Smurfs came to the Big Screen, and my 3k-3play tourney when I completed 3000 games.

I really do try and at least look at the other tourneys in action, if not join them, and either take some of those ideas, and change them, or look for different ways than what they have gone with. The tourney series' I run are played generally the same, but I try to come up with something new with other, newer tourneys I run.

Creativity is definitely key! That's what keeps the wheels rolling and keeps up the excitement and entertainment level.

Not to leave behind any other tournament hosts:

Out of all the tournaments who have joined and taken part in, which was the most unique, exciting, and well-executed, and who hosted it?

I would have to say none fit that bill exactly. However, I feel the most unique to be the Gods, Devils, and Everything in Between tournament run by deantursx. That one I kept crawling back in.I would say the most exciting has been the Official 2011 CC World Cup - Singles hosted by MrGlassB. At this particular moment I am actually rooting for two of my opponents to beat out one other one, which would advance me to the final stage. I have had a lot of success on this map, which of course, until they released it I had never played.For the best executed though, I'm gonna be a suck up and say your 2011 World Cup of Risk tournament is the best executed. The number of players, combined with the brackets, not to mention the way you have laid it all out and made it fun to follow, not sure if I could top it.

CERTAINLY agree with that last choice there So do you bring in any any real-world tournament-organising skills to CC?

I used to run No Limit Hold'em Poker poker at local area bars for The Poker Pub for about 2 years. It was lots of fun and made a number of friends.

Very cool! So enough about tournaments for now . Based on your profile, it looks like you're an aspiring writer? How's that going?

Not so well... As much time as I spend on the PC you would think that I would be able to sit down and actually write stuff down. I have stories up in my head, just cannot figure out how to get em to paper. I try every now and then, go good for a few days, but then things just kinda go... so perhaps, I can get to college or just get my butt in gear and write!!!

Keep looking for that moment of inspiration! Maybe feature some allusions to Conquer Club in your novels Do you have a word of advice for any aspiring TOs who want to make a name for themselves in the tournament world?Follow through!

For those that are now trying to make a name in the tournament world, I must say that following through with a tourney you start is definitely a must. Tourneys can take some time to run and be completed, so make sure you are willing to complete them.

Any goals or anything that you're aiming to accomplish here at CC? Anything interesting you'd like to share about the real life?

To have lots of fun playing games and help make the site more enjoyable for others as a TO. As for real life...well, there was this one time at band camp....

It's been great talking with you! Looking forward to joining some more of your tournaments in the future! Until then, good luck in your CC endeavors!

There are a number of ways someone can end up getting interviewed about their tourney win. Some people send me a message volunteering for an interview. Some are randomly chosen by me while prowling the Completed Tournaments forum. Some are recommended by their TOs. One of the most reliable methods of all is to impress me by kicking my &^% in a tournament final. In this case, we are talking about the KISS Tamriel tournament, part of greenoaks' KISS series. This tourney was first posted on July 12th 2011, and was wrapped up within six weeks, with EBConquer beating me very convincingly (I had great luck the first two turns and really thought I had it won, but starting with turn 3 he managed to turn it around) in the final on August 23rd.

So, what attracted you to this particular tournament?

Well to be frank I had never played a 1v1 tournament, the map looked pretty basic, and I figured I have as much of a chance as anybody. What really set it off was I saw Commander9 post the link on dazerazer's wall... i clicked through and said "ehhh, let's get nasty". Dice were good the first few rounds then eased off the booze as the tourney went on. jk.. errrr.... sorta.

Lol, dazey's wall is a happenin' place. (It wasn't a big deal, but I like to be thorough in these interviews, so I decided to go look at the post you mention. I had to go back 75 pages on her wall from the time you told me about it to the link you mentioned. That means she receives an average of almost 8 wall posts per day. Anyway, back to the tournament )

So, at the time you signed up for KISS Tamriel, you actually had not played a single game on Tamriel, ever. But a couple days later you joined a trips game on that map with the aforementioned dazey. Was that intended as a practise for your tourney games?

Yes, Dazey's wall is quite the happenin place... just the way she likes it

I believe that game was a coincidence. Daze loves that map and I was glad for the invite because I did pick up a few pointers that game!

Tell me something that about the map that you found noteworthy.

Well of course, the colors are delicious but whats really cool are the embassies. It's nice to know that there's a little buddy terit over yonder that if you can get a hold of in the same turn you take the terit... it's usually an eye opening experience for your opponents. especially if you wait long enough to build and make sure you hold it. don't want to sound like a d-bag but it's nice when it happens. Certainly is! And I love maps that reward you for paying attention!

At what point did you start to feel you might win the tourney?

Well, there wasn't a point where I really felt like I was going to win the tourney except at the last game at about round 3. wait, need to take a look at that really quick.... indeed, it was about round 3 or 4 where things started to get weird and the confidence in the tourney started to take place. I still can't tell if it the entire competition was luck of the dice or strategy! That's the way it goes in this game I guess.

Okay, you finally have your first Tournament Victory Cup. How does it feel?

Winning my first tourney felt fabulous. Funny because i never actually thought I was going to win it nor had any preconceived notions that it was going to happen until that last game. For a second there i thought i pulled the rug out but nah, it was good. What's next? Are you getting close in any other tournies? Are you chasing any medals?

It didn't even occur to me that the medal thing was cool or that that was something people sought after till just a few weeks ago. So indeed, I just chased and conquered my rating medal. (silver edition) No seriously though, I'm not really looking at medals right now and just playing the game. As far as tourneys go, i did join another KISS one but started poorly and just about to pick up on a few more. I'm born, bred, and a fan of 1v1's or 1vMulti's but looking toward learning/perfecting the trips/quads game.

Anything and everything: this is your chance to make any comment you want, about tournaments, about CC in general, etc. Basically your personal soapbox for a paragraph or two...

So, yeah, about a year ago my buddy was like, "dude, i know you like to play RISK. There's a cool site I found. You should check it out". Thought twice about it because I'm not much of a computer-type gamer but decided to login to play a couple matches. Figured out I had to create a login and EBConquer was born. Yep, didn't think I was going to be playing for a year, and came to find out it's very hard to change your name.

I'm really diggin' my time here and within that time have gained a lot of new friends and recently hooked up the Imperial Dragoons. I'm into it and you'll see me around!

Thank you very much for your time, and good luck in all your future endeavours!

OK, so you had an idea for your first tournament; you looked at other tournaments; read up on the procedure and published your tournament thread. Shortly afterwards, eager medal hunters filled all the available spaces and you are up and running with tournament privileges. Now you begin to invite the players into the games and realise just how tedious this is – and sometimes difficult to keep track – and wish you had thought this bit through a bit better.

Then, as the games get under way and results start coming in, you keep the tournament thread up-to-date and you wished you had thought of a less complex tournament and wonder how best to manage the updates with a minimum of effort.

That was my experience anyway. So, this series is about different tournament types and techniques of managing them, and, since I am still learning, I’m sure that there are many others out there who have far better methods; if so let me know and I will publish them.

So, let’s start by recapping the steps you needed in beginning your first tournament:

Scroll down to the bottom for the “Organising Your Thread” and “Tournament Tools” for the tags and tools to make your tournament invitation thread attractive and organised. There is also a very good set of articles by rdsrds2120 called "The Forum Tips Thread" that gives additional information. http://www.conquerclub.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=57&t=17807.

For instance:The above was created using the following tools and tags:

Note that the image was uploaded to a free hosting site; Photobucket or, in this case, ImageShack. You don't have to have a picture, but you could include your banner or, as greenoaks' series of Watch and Learn or KISS, he has a special banner to identify the particular series. If you don't have an appropriate banner, then a copy of the map used in the tournament can always be inserted if required.

OK, so now you have a tournament thread that can be posted to attract players. As you get postings from players you can edit your thread to incude their names and update your title to indicate the number of players already included: "My Fantastic First Tournament (5 of 16)". Then post a thread to say that you have included "up to here" - communication to your players is always good practice!

When you have your full complement of players and perhaps one or two additional reserves, you change the title to "My Fantastic First Tournament (Full)" and magically, it seems, within a day or two you have a pm giving you tournament rights and allowing you to create your games.

Let's say you invite your players rather than send pm's (I'll write about a few short cuts for pm'ing in a future article) and you decide to keep track of your games using Challonge (challonge.com). This is a useful (free!) site that allows you to select the type of tournament; say a single elimination, then you copy in your list of players; you can even randomise them using Challonge. There is a link adress on the site that you can paste into your tournament thread that gives a picture of the tournament progress. The following is from one of my completed tournaments.Remember that you still need to occasionally post progress notes onto your tournament thread, as updating Challonge does not affect the thread directly.

So - there is your first tournament set up and under way - it is so easy there is no reason why you should not start right away!

And now for our regular look at a selection of the tournaments in sign-ups:

My first pick this issue is Best. Concert. Ever!!! by sempaispellcheck. All entrants for this 1v1 tournament must pick the band they wish to enter as, and pick a home map which relates to that band in some way, e.g. you could pick Led Zepellin and the Indian Empire map since Led Zep have a song called 'Kashmir'. Sounds like fun and the organiser will take up to 96 bands, but please make sure you understand the scoring system before you sign up.

Fuzzy316 becomes Buzzy316 to bring us Queen Bee. Not for the faint-hearted, this 64-player tournament consists of Terminator games on the Hive map, the first player terminated in each round drops out of the contest.

There are currently not one, but four opportunities in sign-ups to recreate the European Volleyball Championship 2011. amazzony is your host, so the Iv1, Doubles, Triples and Quads versions of this event are certain to be well run.

The latest TPA2 tournament is Beat The Odds! by gameplayer. This is a 1v1 event where, in essence, the organiser is attempting to level the playing field by giving extra lives to those players who manage to win games despite starting second. Each set of games is a first to 5 points, where points are gained at a rate of 1 per game if you started, and 1.5 per game if your opponent started first.

Speed freaks take note; DJ Teflon is hosting a Random Speed Festival for a full week, running from 2nd to 9th November. Games will be available to join throughout that period starting at 15.00 CC time on Wednesday, as usual you may play as many games as you want to, and the player with the best win percentage will collect the trophy. You must play at least 12 games to qualify. Good Luck, folks.

If you're craving tourney action now, check out the Requests for Immediate Players section of the tournament forum. You can be playing very quickly after signing up as a reserve.

EXCITEMENT!!! A new mapmaker, nrds, recently won the Papua New Guinea contest and a new map is available for play only in Game 10000000 by our own samuelc812! Though we have just three articles for you, I think you'll enjoy them to the fullest, especially isaiah40's Interview with the recently re-inducted Industrial Helix, regarding what happened to him and beyond!

About 3 months ago Industrial Helix just disappeared from the face of the earth, with no one knowing what had happened to him, and right at the same time we brought on board a couple of Foundry Assistants to help in the Drafting Room. Needless to say, the foundry slowed to a molasses in January pace. It was only after a couple of weeks that Helix contacted me on Facebook and told me what had happened. And all I could say was WOW! So it is only fitting that yours truly was asked to interview him and get him to tell us all his life's' secrets. Actually, we asked Helix if he would be willing to tell us what had happened to him, and he graciously agreed.

Three months ago you just disappeared from the face of the earth so to speak. Would you mind telling the community what happened to you a little?

Well, I had moved to Tokyo for a job teaching English and it was pretty cool, but I missed the good ole USA quite a bit regardless, I made some cool friends and I enjoyed my students.

Then one day I wake up and can't move my left side. Similar things have happened to me before in Japan, most people sleep on a futon - which is not the futon sofa we see in the US, but more like a padded mat - so essentially I'm sleeping on the hardwood floor which is killer on the blood flow. Many times I had woken up with an arm or leg asleep, so naturally, this time I presumed that I had managed to put both my leg and arm to sleep. As most people who've experienced a sleeping limb know, the numbness usually goes away after not too long so I tried to get up and sit on the computer, play my games until my left side woke up

As it turns out, getting up from the floor with no movement on the left side is near impossible, but I managed and got to my seat successfully only to find out that without muscle control on my left side, there was nothing to hold the dead weight of my arm up except my torso, which was unprepared to do so. So I spectacularly fell to the left side, kicking the wheeled chair out from beneath me and crashing into the floor quite hard... then my good arm snagged my iPod cord on the way down, causing the iPod to swing off the desk land unto my head. So I crawled to my bed yet again and decided to wait it out there instead if hurting myself any more... that iPod was really giving me quite a headache, in fact worst headache I ever had.

Then, as I lay in bed waiting for my left side to work again, someone came to the door and I had to struggle to rise once again. Getting up was quite difficult again and usually resulted in me falling over onto the hardwood floor multiple times, making me quite sore and beaten up. I would get to near standing up and then fall down... it was terrible. Eventually I stood up and made for the door only to trip on the step before my entrance area, again, battered and bruised, I managed to crawl on one side to the door to reach up and open it to some Japanese guy I'd never seen before. Apparently my boss sent someone to my house for some unknown reason, he asked me if was ok, I could barely speak but I managed to say no. So he said something incomprehensible (Japanese) and called 119 (911 in Japan). The paramedics hauled me out and took me to the hospital.

From the hospital bed I guessed something more serious was going on, I guessed Stroke, despite being only 26. But the total left side paralysis was a big sign of a stroke. Fortunately, the other teacher from the school stopped by and used his bilingual powers to confirm it was a stroke. That headache I noticed after my iPod clocked me was a blood clot killing the blood flow to the lower middle section of my right hemisphere.

So they injected me with a clot buster and gave me like a million CAT and MRI scans so I got to see my brain with this big dead chunk in the middle

Then I had a hemorrhage and blood leaked into my cranium, I read later on that blood is pretty toxic to brain cells, so a little extra damage done. At this point, my mom in Ohio hadn't heard from me in some time and investigated my Facebook account to see I hadn't been online since the Wednesday (the day before my stroke) and by the time the weekend, my continued online absence panicked her into calling my school to find out where I was. Quite foolishly I presumed everything was gonna be just fine in Japan and never put emergency contacts in place. So she ended up finding the number to my school on an old resume of mine just lying around. So much to her despair she learned of my condition and resolved to fly to Tokyo to get me and bring me home. Being quite homesick, this was great news as I wanted nothing more to be in an English speaking hospital. The Japanese hospital staff was very friendly and the doctor did everything necessary to save my life. But I had a hard time finding out what was going on with my body and communicating with the physical therapists. Overall, quite scary to be so in the dark after finding out you just had a massive stroke. So my mama came to my rescue and put my affairs in order so I could return to the US for continued treatment.

You are in rehab at the moment correct?

Yeah, though rehab makes it sound like I'm on cocaine or something.

LOL!!

Technically its called Physical Therapy

Right.

PT is for working on my leg. I'm also in Occupational Therapy which is for recovering my left arm and Speech therapy to make sure my brain works on my speaking ability and cognitive skills.

How is your Physical Therapy going?

I actually just finished PT as they've deemed me fit to walk wherever I want and capable of holding my balance in most situations, which is mostly true, last week I was walking out to the car in the dark and busted one of my mom's giant flower pots with my shin. It tipped over and was annihilated, despite all this I maintained my balance and did not fall down!

Glad you kept your balance!

There's a wellness program though that I'm gonna do to continually work this leg back to goodness. My walk is a bit stiff and running is tough because I can't move my leg up fast enough. I can jog slowly though.

See, there are two problems I'm grappling with. The first is that since their immobilization, my leg and arm have lost a lot of muscle, the second is that since my motor strip in my brain was so damaged, my muscles are constantly being told to move, for example my bicep is being told to bend the arm and my fingers are constantly being told to close into a fist. So I've got to relearn how to turn all that off and in places like my bicep, I've got a lot of movement (albeit a jerky movement), but still working on locating the finger central command and turning everything off. After everything is off again, I've got to relearn how to move them again using only the left hemisphere of my brain, as my right side is messed up

Basically, from here on I'm operating on my right side. Actually I mean, my left side... never got my lefts and rights straight in kindergarten.

LOL!

So yeah, my left hemisphere has got to pick up the slack, though, from the brain scans I've seen, there should be some right brain material still working. One thing I'm quite fortunate of is that I never lost any memories - that I've noticed yet. So I believe there is quite a bit of brain matter that is still working.

Actually, I shouldn't have lost much or even any information... the difficulty is figuring out how to access it. If the brain is like the internet, my Google page is a bit busted. For about the first two months after the stroke my brain spent its time sleeping to cycle through all the information, to rediscover where everything is at now. I didn't have proper dreams with pictures or stories... just constant streams of information. I'd wake up puzzled over the strangest things, such as "What is the biggest city in the smallest state?" Turns out its Providence RI, I believe, but it was kind of cool, in a way

Now I'm back to mostly having proper dreams.

Well this is good to hear!

Yeah, the recovery is going along nicely. Quite thankful to be alive really, while in that Tokyo hospital bed, I thought for sure I was gonna slip in a coma and never wake up.

We're glad you didn't!

Me too, there’s too much in life to do yet, like finishing that Russian Revolution map. So yeah, doing well... and the speech therapy people say CC is good rehab for my thinking. Though, I've noticed my rank has gone down since I started playing again.

Rest assured that it isn't because of your stroke. It is the dice! LOL!

Damn dice

So tell us about the before stroke Helix. Your first maps, CA duties etc.

Well, I came on to the scene when I started wondering why only modern political states were on CC as maps... past states would be an equally suitable map subject... so I did the 13 Colonies map. Then I did German and Italian Unification. and offered my help to MrBenn should he need it.

He didn't say yes immediately, but a few weeks later I got the PM asking for me to help out in the Drafting Room, so basically, TaCktiX and I monitored the new maps and tried to guide the mapmakers in the right direction to finishing their maps. Somewhere my fascination with South Africa kicked in and upon realizing how small Zululand is I decided to depict another area of British Colonial Rule, hence South Africa 1885. Then I got moved to Graphics and tried to decide whether maps were graphically solid to move on... not as fun as the Drafting Room and there, one is quick to hear complaints about nitpicking.After that I was moved to the Drafting Room again, and we were working on finding some assistants for me last I remember, then I dropped off the face of the internet due to my stroke. I think Gimil came on board to cover for me. I'm planning on returning once I can type with two hands again cause with just one hand, I tend to be a little slow, and more likely to cut my opinions and thoughts short and probably be less help to everyone.

Mostly I took care of the new maps in the Drafting Room and worked one on one with the new mapmakers... then I did a few contests ( and botched one or two I think). I also did his laundry on alternate Mondays and took out the trash and sorted the recycling on the weekends when he just couldn't be bothered with menial house chores.

LOL! You don't seem to be doing too bad typing now! How did you come to join CC?

I joined CC because a friend told me about this awesome site where you play Risk with other people but turns are over 24 hours so there's time to finish games. And I didn't sign up, but the thought remained with me and later I Googled it and joined up with a friend so I could relive the best part of weekends in College one turn at a time.

In your signature, you have a link to on one of your blogs. Specifically the one pointing to your sketching blog. You're a pretty good - can I say - artist. Tell us a bit more about this hobby.

Hmm... well, I've been sketching for years starting with the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at age 4 or 5, I liked how drawing something, even if it was someone elses creation, sort of made it your own and I liked how it showed me some of the little nuances of how things appeared and it led me to appreciate the aesthetics of things, specifically the human body, and in short fascinated me. I graduated with a BA in Fine Art in College and focused a lot on Classical representational Art in Drawing and in Sculpting. So since then I've been Drawing and sculpting, sometimes sticking to classical representational art and in other times branching off into more abstract representational stuff. Also, Given my interest in things like Ninja Turtles I've dabbled in Comic Book Art... but struggle with writing a solid well-thought out story, so if any CC'ers out there have a script, I'm serious, let me know! But in summation, drawing and Art are a big interest of mine and I'm always looking to improve and seem to have a bottomless appetite for the insights art gives to me. Its sort of a way of partaking in beautiful and interesting things and I really enjoy that... I just wish there was a way to make a living doing it.

Moving on into the future, how do you think this stroke will have affected you in a few years, once all of the effects of it have diminished?

Well, When I was laying in the Hospital Bed with my Skull filling up with blood thinking that I could die at any moment. I know this sounds cliche, but I thought I really ought to have lived life more fully... I came up with a Litany of things I wish I'd done or trivial concerns that prevented me from doing things I wish I'd done. So my goal at this point is to enjoy my life cause you don't really know when its over.

Sounds like a good goal. People are asking if you're going to finish your Communism map pack. Is the completion of them in your future plans?

The commie maps... yeah, I want to finish them... China, and Cuba are GP approved, so, now it’s just a matter of finishing the graphics, I don't see any reason not to finish them.

What are your plans for the future, both in real life and here on CC?

Once I'm healthy again, I think I'm probably gonna try to go back to Japan or somewhere in Asia. I've got a head start on Japanese and I'd like to be fluent in it. Otherwise, I'm interested in teaching in S Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore or the middle east.

As for maps, I'd like to do a more militarily accurate US Civil War and various fronts of WWI, the Pacific theater of WWII needs some rep on CC IMO

Nothing seems to scare off Mods more than the fear of copyright infraction. Like all such fears, it is perhaps more a result of the great unknown than anything else. Whilst I give Lackattack and the rest of the crew credit where credit is due, after all no-one wants to buy a fight for no reason, a little information may help show that copyright isn’t really as scary as some may think.

The skinny on copyright

Hold onto your hats, here’s a law degree in two minutes – no prior knowledge required. First thing is that laws are written by people. That’s a bit obvious, but the point is that they laws are not immutable. Laws are really no more than a written version of older concepts. The legislature just keeps mucking with the wording to keep us on our toes.

Copyright laws come in all shapes and sizes, but their essence is the protection of hard work that people have gone to in expressing ideas. Whether you write (like this article), record a song (performance rights), make a movie (mixed rights packages) or design a map on Conquer Club, the expression of the idea is considered by everyone (well everyone important) to be worthy of protecting. The world is a better place because people do stuff.

The detail of copyright laws are all variations on a theme, with tweaks on how long the protection lasts and how easy or hard it is to obtain or maintain protection in the various classes of copyrightable things. There is an effort internationally at uniformity, with treaties between countries to assist in that endeavour. The point of noting this is that copyright cases internationally have similar themes and, in my humble opinion, the detail of the law in your country is irrelevant – at least it is for the purposes of this article.

All these laws and cases sum up to protection of expression of an idea as an effort to reward uniqueness and hard work. This is a matter of discretion, degree, judgment and opinion. After all, there is no such thing as an original idea. If someone has obtained copyright protection then generally speaking copyright laws allow for copying by way of licensing and prohibit copying by moral rights protections. Licensing is a way of providing revenue to the owner of copyright so that people do not profit on the backs of other people’s hard work and ingenuity. On the other hand there are some uses that works should not be put to, such as a finding your holiday snaps being used by some tawdry commercialised advertisement (assuming you never gave permission for that).

So, there are multiple different layers of quality and concept. And then people start arguing. Someone may complain that you copied their copyrighted work. That’s when Court come into the equation. Courts conduct proceedings including what gets filed and how, what gets processed and when and the way in which the case is run including rules of evidence, admissibility and process. Just how all this works in practice depends very much on the people involved, and sad to say, in mood of the Judge.

The primary purpose behind rules of Court is to ensure that the Judge gets all the information needed to make a decision. Part of that process is a consideration of previous cases on the same issue as Judges are typically bound to follow decisions on like cases. But it is not hard for a Judge to find reasons to follow apparently unrelated cases or to distinguish apparently relevant cases on the basis of whatever factual consideration the judge considers at the time. Some commentators see this as “looking over a crowd of people and choosing a few of your friends for support”. As a consequence the law books are filled with conflicting decisions and strange ideas which truly boggle the mind to come to terms with. In short, the one certainty with law is that nothing is certain.

True, things aren’t always that arbitrary but sometimes they are. Some swear by the “sniff test”. If it stinks then it’s probably bad. You know when you’ve done something wrong, or you’re trying to get away with something or you are otherwise being tricky. But some rules around copyright defy any real understanding. Some laws are badly written. Some cases badly presented. Some mistakes get made. And the result is more uncertainty. Cases are won or lost through guile, cunning, tedium, an unequal division of power between the players, a bigger picture or because it deserved the result.

How then can anyone make sense of any of this. Well, in short, you can’t. It’s for that reason that people, and Lackattack is one smart cookie if this is his philosophy, avoid disputes, sit well away from the fence and otherwise don’t get into territory where problems can arise. In the terms of this site, the question is not so much whether this map or that map is breaching copyright but rather whether Conquer Club can avoid getting into any kind of a fight in the first place. This may seem strange for a website premised on war games, but there you have it. But as pure and good as this motivation is, fights are not things you avoid. They are things you have. You don’t know you’re going to have one until it happens and then its too late to avoid. So ... what would happen if Conquer Club entered into a fight? Say if the Mods missed something and someone decided to make a claim of copyright breach. Well, as convoluted and obscure as the legal system is, it is my view that even then Conquer Club need not fear. My reason is the recent fight between Hasbro Inc the game giant on the one side and the makers of a variant of Scrabble on the other.

Scrapping over Scrabble

Hasbro claimed that Scrabulous on Facebook ...

... supposedly ripped off Hasbro’s Scrabble ...

It doesn’t take a genius to see that Scrabulous looks very much like Scrabble. But there are differences. To understand the context in which the battle was played out in the Court it is necessary to go back a little in history. Although today Hasbro and Mattel share the rights to Scrabble, Hasbro in North America and Canada and Mattel everywhere else, where did the rights come form? So let’s go back to the beginning. Cue wavy lines. This is my take on the official story. In 1938, architect Alfred Mosher Butts was out of work and struggling for something to do before he came up with Lexiko - in which players tried to construct words from nine randomly drawn lettered tiles. Not that Milton Bradley was interested!

He had studied cryptography and used that to value each letter tile in accordance with the frequency of the letters. Initially there was no board and it wasn’t really a winner. So Butts kept tinkering with the idea, adding a points system and a board of 15 by 15 tiles and renamed it Criss-Crosswords.

And a bit later, 1950, Butts added Cross Words to the list of versions:

In 1948, James Brunot, bought the rights to manufacture the game in exchange for granting Butts a royalty on every unit sold. Brunot mucked with the board, changing the important squares, simplifying the rules and inventing the name Scrabble. The venture struggled until Macy’s made a huge order and the game hit the mainstream. By then Brunot was over it all, distributing games isn’t as fun as playing them and certainly wasn’t profitable for Brunot, so he was trying to sell off the game to whoever who take it. Parker Bros said no, as did Milton Bradley. Selchow & Righter bought a license for Scrabble in 1952 and bought the Trade mark in 1972. They were an old company known as a “jobber” – they produced and bought licenses to other people’s games. By all accounts they were very successful and sold out to Coleco in 1986. Coleco wasn’t so smart and went bankrupt just 3 years later. Hasbro picked up the licenses for Scrabble, America and Canada, and other games in a fire sale (notably Parcheesi and Trivial Pursuit and many more besides). Meanwhile, from 1955 JW Spears (now a subsidiary of Mattel) began distributing Scrabble in Australia and the UK (as it owned the rest of the world rights). But, to be fair, Butts invention was not unique and there were other pre-scrabble games. For instance in 1939 George Coffin invented Autowords, but he didn’t publish that until 1955:

Also in 1939 Pressman Toy company published Wordy:

Against this background of variations, multiple inventors, ideas which happened and those which did not, Scrabble emerged as the main commercial variant. Into the fray, Scrabulous arrived. Scrabulous was invented by Calcutta-based brothers Rajat and Jayant Agarwalla in 2005 and added as an application to Facebook in 2007. Hasbro noticed them immediately and moved to defend Scrabble. In fact Hasbro had sold a licensing agreement to Electronic Arts to make an electronic version of Scrabble. So when Scrabulous appeared complete with references to Scrabble and even a link to Scrabble rules Hasbro felt it had to act. Initially they sent cease and desist letters, which were ignored, and Hasbro even made an attempt to purchase Scrabulous (apparently for $10 million). But that too was rejected. So Hasbro sued. Meanwhile Mattel’s reaction was to launch its own electronic Scrabble game on Facebook – which could not be accessed in North America or Canada. That action brought resistance by other Facebook users including a protest by some 54,000 odd people. Meanwhile Hasbro’s lawsuit caused Scrabulous to be shut down worldwide (except India). Eventually the Scrabulous site itself was suspended. Finally, the Delhi High Court ruled that the game Scrabble itself could not be copyrighted. Given the other variants I mention above that seems a very fair ruling. But the Agarwalla brothers were not allowed to use the name Scrabulous or any other name similar to that of Scrabble. Again, all very sensible stuff. They could, however, continue to offer their similar game online. The next day the game was renamed Lexulous and the game had a make-over (the important squares were moved to differentiate it from Scrabble and the game now uses 8 tiles instead of 7 although uses outside of Hasbro’s territory can play the 7 tile version if they prefer) but was pretty much the same.

Hasbro gave up the fight. And so they should. Indeed, many believe that Hasbro was wrong to start the fight in the first place. They lost a bunch of friends and made others grumpy. And for what? Perhaps it wasn’t even their battle anyway, but we are immensely thankful to Hasbro for battling anyway. Had they not done so then we would not have this ruling. The best thing about this ruling is that it helps clarify just where the dividing line is. In short, if you are going to copy someone else’s work then change the name and move bits around so that your version is not obviously theirs. Do that and you should be fine. However, respect where respect is due. If you want to make a map based on someone else’s image (or game) then by all means why not contact them and seek their approval first?

Parchisi or bust

And did I suggest that Conquer Club always ran from a battle? Well Victor Sullivan ain’t no ‘fraidy cat because he has suggested this. Yep, that’s Parcheesi listed above as one of the games bought from the Coleco fire sale. Mind you, the version that Selchow & Righter purchased a license to in 1870 was itself a version of the game which was originally invented in India circa 500 AD. So, based on the above argument, Conquer Club has nothing to worry about. Victor Sullivan’s version is called Parchisi, which is the original name for the game, and frankly looks different to the original Selchow & Righter game if you ask me!

Besides there are so many other versions of Parchisi it’s ridiculous, including this online version and this beautiful old French one:

Right now, I can hear you all go, how the hell is censorship part of the foundry process. Well, I will answer that after a brief history lesson. But, I will ask you not to take offence by anything you see or read in this issue. It has all been done in the best possible taste.

A while ago lackattackbanned the use of swastikas on Conquer Club maps. This is the only image that as of now is banned on Conquer Club maps.It is seen as so offensive by so many people, the site took the first step into censorship. Rightly or wrongly, it has been enforced to the detriment of some map(s). Should a map set during the second world war be allowed to use this symbol or any of its variations?Some maps have got this symbol on, but they had been made before the ban was imposed on the foundry and it has not been retrospectively enforced. They include...All, but one, world war two maps where the symbol is relevant. So why could not cairnswk use it on his Das Schloss map. Because it was made after the ban. If the site deems the symbol so offensive to not allow any new map, no matter how relevant it may be to have the symbol on, should these 6 be banned also?

The first time I ran into censorship on this site was when a friend posted an idea for a map. It would of made for a good map. But within the first 3 posts, this is the feedback given.

koontz1973 wrote:NO bloody way. Sorry Seamus but can you imagine the uproar if this map gets any further than this.

Me above.

Bruceswar wrote:I am going to agree here. Not this map.

thenobodies80 wrote:Let me hide this one before it gives us some serious headaches.Bad idea, stop now.

[Moved & Locked]

Nobodies

This is the image that caused us to say these things. Before any of you jump down Seamus76 throat, I know for a fact, he meant no harm and no offence to anyone.DiM, a great map maker took the side of Seamus and set up this thread to ask...

I advise you all to go on over to the thread and have a read. It gives both sides of the story, for and against the maps idea. But in the end, thenobodies80 kept it locked. It does not matter if you agree with him or not, as foundry foreman, he has the responsibility to keep the maps within a certain line. With some map makers, that is not an easy task. During the discussion, thenobodies80 made the comment that he has to draw a line on what is allowed. So I set a test for him and asked would any of these ideas be allowed to continue through the foundry...

Assassination of JFK (DiM's idea for a map)Using the KKK in southern America.Swastika (Banned by Lack)South Africa (apartheid)Map of Concentration camps 1945Map of a real serial killer kills (Jack the Ripper)

1. Could be done tastefully2. Seriously? This is a bad idea all the way.3. Lack has made the decree, and there's a while thread about it elsewhere.4. This could be done in a "unite the nation" way, but would gave to be done carefully.5. This feels like another bad idea to me, that couldn't be done in good taste.6. I struggle to see a way this could be done tastefully; you could probably get away with a jack the ripper themed map with weird masonic links etc, but it would be a stretch. Any more recent serial killer or massacre maps would only probably be in bad taste

So, even with trying to shock the foundry, 3 of the 6 maps could be made (if done right). Like most foundry discussions, we end up taking it a bit too far and asked if this map would be banned?No one has said no, so expect Bra Wars...Episode 4 .A Wild Hope to come soon.

This is the story/background on one of the latest foundry maps. It's creator (me) worked long and hard on this map. But the story has been criticised by a player.

joriki wrote:It's probably not meant that way, but the text at the lower right about the Victoria Crosses could easily be understood as a positive reference to what was essentially a colonialist crime. I'd suggest rephrasing it to avoid that impression.

Like every map, the beta process is there to solve these problems. My first reaction to this post by joriki was

koontz1973 wrote:It is meant to be a positive reference.

Not the best answer I could of given.It is positive, I freely admit that I got the idea for the map from the film (Zulu, incase you did not get it ). I love this film for its uplifting effect. My comment was not meant towards colonisation but towards the brave men that fought that day. But my first comment has started a discussion on it. Should my story be allowed to stay on the map or not. I see no reason to remove it, and through the months of foundry work, no one else commented on it. But, this is why we have Beta. To solve all of these problems. While the reference could be seen as neutral, joriki set up a thread to try and get a discussion going. That it did. I may not like being criticised but I am going to give you the thread so you can go and have a read. And criticise if you feel it needs changing, but better yet, come up with an alternative that fits, if it is good, your words will go on the map for all time.

As I stated at the beginning, none of this is meant to harm or shock. just inform. So, please no hate mail.

Happy gaming everyone, whatever map takes your fancy.

This Issue the inimitable Alt comes up with an enticing view of the spate of upsets traversing through the clan scene, primarily in the ACC arena. The main outlier of course being the continued unbeaten charge of The Pack, who extend their unbeaten run to 7 challenges, getting close to the 8/9 and 11/12 benchmarks of Tofu and Thota respectively.In other news the Final Foursome in the Conquerors Cup seems to be as close as ever. While Kort seem to have eked out a win against Empire, the Tsm-Thota seems to be locked in a dead heat that can only perhaps be resolved in extra time. All eyes eagerly await the outcome.LeeharClan Executive

In the clan world, there has been a predominant perception that there are three classes of clans…the super elite, the strong tried and true, and then the pitiable rest. Movement through the castes was to flow at the rate of molasses on a flat plane…taking ages to move from one caste to another. In the clan world over the past month, a wave of upsets has swept over the scene challenging the age old paradigm. The super elite are still elite, but some up and coming new clans as well as written off forgotten clans are taking swings at the upper middle…and landing punches closing the gap between new and “tried and true”. Momento Mori, consistently ranked lowly by every conceived system has led the revival. Notching a win in a tie-breaker over the highly touted Wild Geese, M&M started finding its groove. Then in a second round match up in the All Comers Cup M&M authoritatively took down long-standing stalwart of the top ten Nemesis 30-16 in convincing fashion, winning 8 of 10 Nemesis home trips/quads games. The second round of the All Comer’s Cup also witnessed significant upsets by new clans with the Grenadier Guards knocking off the Angels of Death 25-24 and the Pig Renters defeating the Agents of Chaos 28-22. The Pack has continued the upset trend…clawing out a win over the #6 ranked Immortal Assassins and remaining undefeated since their inception less than a year ago. There was much debate about whether the Pack as a new clan belonged in the top ten…it’s difficult to imagine they don’t have a place there once this one goes final. So what do these upsets mean? Is the string of upsets an aberration? If not…why is the gap between new clans and clans not ranked in the top 5 closing? Like any complex question…lots of factors figure in. It would be remiss not to look at the clans who have fallen and not at least consider the factor that war fatigue has played. Schedules involve CC Cup concurrent with Clan League, usually combined with a marquee match-up against another top clan…these clans have been in at least one trench constantly for over a year. They have largely attained their status by being active against the best. It is tough to sustain the same intensity in war as an up and coming new clan who has everything to prove and nothing to lose. While war fatigue surely plays a part, there was also a time when such upsets would not have been thought possible fatigued or not. The answer to these upsets may be found by considering the growth of the tournament scene. The success, competitiveness, and intensity of the tournament scene have greatly aided new clans by cultivating skills in a wide array of prospective recruits. Players new to the clan scene often come over after spending time on the tournament circuit. They come in battle tested, with a ton of experience on a wide range of maps. Tournament games (unless it’s perhaps the finals) don’t carry quite the same weight as a clan game in terms of intensity, but its close. Making the transition from winning tournaments to winning clan games is a lot smoother than transitioning from a bunch of speed games to the clan scene. One Step Ahead, The Fantastic Four Skins, and the Pig Renters have all had an incredible amount of success fielding players from this arena and competing at very high levels against upper tier clans.In addition to the tournament scene producing a pool of highly skilled players…the data available to new clans has grown exponentially as more and more wars are logged and put down in the books. Through the clan director’s guidance, war thread op’s contain the games played and the results…providing an enormous database of how to guides for new clans. Flipping through KORT or THOTA war threads and game logs is a university level course in how to play tough boards well and it doesn’t cost you any points to get the experience. The upsetting trend has been running rampant. It will be interesting to see if the “tried and true” caste of clans will beat down this rebellion, or if it is time for the perception of new and lower ranked clans to change.